Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
Ran across this rather interesting article on eBook pirates, who they are and why the pirate
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...conomics.shtml
In a nutshell, the article says that more than half the ebook pirates are 30 and up and a third have an income of $100,000 or more. In addition it says that the number one driver for piracy is convenience.
The article also talks about a subject that comes up here quite a bit, the marginal cost of ebooks, i.e. why pay for something that doesn't cost anything to reproduce?
My basic take is I totally get the convenience part. Being able to get almost any ebook that I want at one place is very compelling.
I don't get the marginal cost issue. I mean, I understand what it means and yes, I understand that it doesn't cost anything to reproduce an ebook. However, I don't understand how people do not acknowledge the cost of creating the book in the first place. |
I agree. While it doesn't cost anything to make a copy of a book in ebook format there is the hard work of creation in the first place. 1/3rd eh? So that means 2/3rds are not among the wealthy? Or do they have it broken down further I wonder? While I don't understand why they charge say $9.99 for a given book in ebook format for a book that's been in paper for say 10 yrs or more I get that they want to make some $ on it in the new media. What gets me though is when a book isn't available in either paper or ebook even though it's a known title. Eleanor Cameron's Mushroom Planet books for example may be in paper (though hard to find) but they might also be expensive not to mention there is the issue of finding space for physical books (something that ebooks don't have to worry about).